Chocomania: Candy with moxie

Last week I talked about World Market’s house brand chocolates.  This week, let’s take a look at Choxie, which is Target’s in-store chocolate line.  The first thing I always notice about Choxie candies is their packaging.  They come in fun, bright wrappers and boxes that practically leap out and scream to be noticed.

In terms of quality, Choxie chocolates are somewhere between mass-produced chocolates and high-end chocolates.  The ingredients are better than what you’d find in Hershey’s or Mars products, but definitely not as good as Ghirardelli or Green & Blacks.  Also, quality is sometimes spotty, as I’ll describe shortly.

Price-wise, I think Choxie is way too expensive, but since Target often has it on sale, it’s just usually only just a little overpriced.

But what about the chocolates themselves?

I recently had the chocolate caramel trio, which is an amazing combination of dark chocolate sea salt caramels, milk chocolate coffee caramels, and white so-called chocolate warm spice caramels.  The dark was absolutely amazing and I would have been happy with a bag of just those.  The milk was quite good too and was a nice complement to the dark.  As for the white, I was dubious and almost didn’t try them, but it turns out the that the warm spice caramel filling was quite tasty and almost made up for white vile-ness on the outside.

One complaint I have about the caramels is that while the overall quality was generally good, I occasionally had one that was dried out and hard.  That’s just not something that happens with the higher-end chocolates and is something that the Choxie people need to take care of if they want their products to be taken seriously.

The caramels come in a 5.85 ounce bag that is supposed to be around four servings, but I accidentally turned it into one extended all-day serving.  (Don’t try this at home; you WILL feel nauseous afterward).

I’ve also had the milk chocolate bing cherries, which also come in a 5.85 ounce bag.  Again, it’s only four servings, but the bag seems so small that you have to be careful not to inhale all 800 calories at once.  And believe me, you’ll want to.  The cherries are dried and smothered in milk chocolate, which creates this amazing blend of sweet + tart that is out of this world.  (But then again, I am on record as liking chocolate + cherries.)

Another one I’ve enjoyed far too much is the chocolate-covered pistachios, which I find to be highly addictive.  It’s this amazing combination of sweet milk chocolate + salty pistachios + something else I’ve never been able to define.  Luckily (or not, depending one’s perspective), I haven’t seen them at Target lately, so I don’t know if they’re still being made.  It’s probably just as well since this is yet another instance of a 6 ounce bag seeming far too small…

Choxie also makes a variety of bars too, but I’ll tell you now that I have yet to have one that I’ve actually loved or even liked.  Most were merely “meh” and didn’t interest me, largely because the chocolate was either too sweet or even a bit oily, not to mention the fillings were usually a bit boring.

For example, I’ve tried one particular dark chocolate coconut bar at least three times, because I didn’t learn from my first attempt that it was lame and kept coming back to it to see if I was somehow wrong in my original assessment.  I was not.

Choxie also makes truffles and my experience with those has also been mixed.  Some were quite good, but most were underwhelming.  But they’re so darn cute and colorful that I just want them to taste fabulous.

So my conclusion is that Choxie candies are a real mixed bag.  Some are good, while many are lame.  I think they are too expensive, especially given their spotty quality.  But if you, like me, find a product or two that you just love, then that is a good thing.

What about you?  Have you had any Choxie?  What did you think?